Fall Newsletter

The fall issue of the Finlandia University Elementary Education Newsletter is now available. You can find it at the link below:

http://sites.google.com/site/fueledarchive/Home/newsletter_fall_08_v5.pdf?attredirects=0

Most Likely to Succeed

"Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You’d have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you’d get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile. And remember that a good teacher costs as much as an average one, whereas halving class size would require that you build twice as many classrooms and hire twice as many teachers."

Read more from this great New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell on the qualities and selection of master teachers: Most Likely to Succeed

Elementary Education Graduates' Employment

Masters of education scholarships

Walden University, a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, is offering 100 full scholarships for online masters of education degrees. See the link below for more information.

http://justusrandolph.net/articles/Walden_CGI_Announcement.pdf

Foundations of Education student videos on the History of Education

Here are some videos made by the Fall '08 Foundations of Education students. These videos were part of an authentic assessment on the history of American Education.

The European Heritage and Colonial Experience


From the Revolution to the 20th Century


From the Progressive Movement to the Present

The Mr. Koski Video Challenge

Hi Mr. Koski,

The students in my EDU 421 absolutely loved the video that you and your students made for us. Thank you. Here are our education students' responses. Below you will find two versions of the same footage edited differently. Could your students vote on their favorite? Let's keep up the video correspondence!





--Justus

Elementary Education Club Fundraiser

The Elementary Education Club had their first major fundraiser of the year and became brownbaggers at Econo Foods from 10-4:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 4th. They were delighted to raise $484.54 which will be used to accommodate community service locally and to support education abroad in Guatemala and India. This was a collaborative effort between juniors and seniors. Active participants were Gina Aho, Alisha Carne, Michael Datto, Heidi Butler, Lisa Harden, Serena Harju, and Jamie Bellinger.

Field Experience EDU 201 -Spring 2009

     Applications for EDU 201 Field Experience Placements are due on Monday, November 3, 2008.  Please pick up and submit your application in Sarah Paquette's office in room 409, Mannerheim Hall.  If you have any questions regarding this application feel free to contact Dr. Laurene Ziegler, Department Chair of Education,  at Ext. 351, 405 Mannerheim Hall, or by e-mail. (laurene.ziegler@finlandia.edu)

Welcome to the Finlandia University Elementary Education Blog

Welcome to Finlandia University's Elementary Education Blog. In this blog, we will be posting announcements related to the elementary education program. We will also use this blog as a place to showcase our staff, student, and alumni's digital accomplishments, share our favorite education-related links and resources with you, and to post program-related forms.

We hope that you will check in here often. We have added a subscription link at the bottom of this blog if you wanted to subscribe to it and get announcements as they occur.

If you are a Finlandia University Elementary Education student, let us know if you would like us to add your blog or website here or if you have any links that you think would be interesting to add. E-mail your links to Dr. Randolph at justus.randolph@finlandia.edu

We'll end this blog by putting in one of our favorite videos. We hope you enjoy it.

--The Faculty and Staff of the Finlandia Elementary Education Department